Modeling and Tip Position Control of a Flexible Link Robot: Experimental Results

Abstract: This work describes the modeling and control of an experimental platform associated to a single link flexible robot, whose motion is restricted to an horizontal plane, thus neglecting the gravity effects. The modeling problem is addressed using the so-called Euler-Bernoulli beam equation. The design, construction and integration of an experimental set-up developed for this work is also presented. Two main control schemes are then devised for controlling the end tip position of the flexible link, the passive velocity feedback and strain feedback approaches. Finally, the overall system performance is illustrated by some experimental results obtained with both control methods.